familypediawikiaorg-20200214-history
Talk:Model County, Statename
Yes, I think this a reasonable arrangement of data if what we want are County pages to capture useful information about counties. I don't see any point in repeating the information on Wikipedia---at least not as a simple data dump, but the information that appears there could be imported in part where it has particular relevance to genealogical pursuits, and then a link to the WK would take care of the occassional need for more in depth data on present day counties. The selection of categories in the model template seems quite reasonable. Robin will recall that once upon a time I played with setting up some county pages to capture data. I still work on that occassionally, but I think realism set in and I came to realize that I simply wasn't interested in doing massive data input---just for the sake of having the data on the site. One could spend a lifetime doing that, and still not have everything. Doing something like that requires either a) great dedication, b) corporate financing, or c) a team of a whole lot of volunteers, which is something genealogy is good at. At anyrate, yes, I think this a reasonable display/layout for setting up a county page. Looks good to me. But re my comments about the overall utility of templates---that was not intended as a criticism. If it was seen that way, please accept my appologies. As Robin pointed out, realistically, people do run out of steam on projects. In my own case, I'll get a great idea and explore it for a bit, (like a template), then forget all about it. Unless I'm actually using it on a daily basis, I probably won't even remember I ever did something with it. Perhaps my experience is different from others. But, if someone wants to dedicate themselves to establishing a repository of information about Counties, focused on genealogical needs, that would be really useful. And if someone is going to do that, having a template to establish the form and function upfront is the way to go. My recommendation would be to pick a couple of counties, and set them up the way the template is organized. Then point them out for comment, let them sit for awhile, comeback a few weeks later, and see if the organization still seems good. Bill 15:06, 22 September 2007 (UTC) :I like this approach. It seems to include most things a genealogist would need. Will 21:15, 22 September 2007 (UTC) Example of a rich structure In the spirit of Being Bold, let's consider competing county genealogical sites such as Clark county, Ohio. Take a look at that, or any others from these various chains of associated county sites. Now our proposed model is a place to start, but it needs to also give some guidance to folks about how a more in depth treatment of a county would appear. Some improvements to the model may be found at Greene County, Ohio. One main problem with the current model is that it does not scale to a serious sized genealogy site. Everywhere there are genealogy site pages for counties and they have tons more information for a county than will fit on a single page. The example page provides these features: *Genealogical research links are at the top, not buried. A fuller list of sources to consider is listed, including links to probate references, local churches that have records, etc. *Contributors are plugged into a local community by the Forum/ queries option *Slice of life articles from the various time periods is encouraged in the "Daily life" (by time period) row. *Local census data, as with other sources of voluminous information has a regularized page name- otherwise folks may just dump this stuff on the county main page, burying it in data. *The WP version is ported verbatim, but a banner template is added informing users that it does not meet the site's expectations for a good overview article. Exact text of the expectations for a good placename main article can be discussed as a separate issue, and changed at will through modification of the warning template. (EG- the demographics section totally sucks rocks.) *People categories index relatives, and will pull the contributors with the county location events into the local history context defined by these local hubs of wikia communities. *Color scheme of the navbox is wrong. I have to monkey around with Common.css to fix this. But basically it uses the same parchment scheme demonstrated in the William the conquerer article. It is my firm view that this wikia will be immense. I'd like to proceed with some small test runs of uploads of data using the scheme expressed in the example article. If it looks good, we can move to higher volume runs. [[User:Phlox|'~'' Phlox']] 18:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC) :That example is fantastic. Give us 3,100? But it's a bit more than a bot can do in one pass, I guess. I'd be happy for you to redo the model page so that it's what a bot can produce 3,100 of, so that we can see how much work is required to get the results up to Greene County, Ohio standard. Robin Patterson 20:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC) ::Getting the main article and the forums set up is a one pass deal. I did Virginia in one pass the other night. [[User:Phlox|'~'' Phlox']] 17:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC) :::I'd like to see that "Virginia" material (and others might too; so a link here would be easier than sending us to your Contributions page!); speaking of which, can you go to the Virginia page and fix that demographics table - html to wiki I presume - then give us a proper Template:Virginia something like what WP does instead of Zephyrinus's pretty flag?? (I thought I had given his flags all a distinctive template name in preparation for getting all the WP state templates, but evidently some unfinished business in that area because I realise I haven't fixed all the links to his flags. Some are hard work because they are hidden in wonderful but huge cemetery pages.) Robin Patterson 08:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC) :Huh? Why assume the obscure? Did you try taking a look at the subcats of Category:Virginia? There you will find Category:Virginia counties. :Alternately, you might read in the news: Forum:Big import of counties coming up :As for cleaning up the html tidy bug in the demographic data, a tr may be substituted as - and a td is a . It's not any wizardry, just tedium. I am working on mass person import (picture tens of thousands of new people) and it ranks a wee bit higher than the demographics template- really it is just a table template... no big deal- just rewrite- put the years and the values in- call it a day. If you can't handle it, comment it out and stick and htmltidy bug tag on it- I will get to it later. :The waving flag template work was a mess. I overwrote all the state templates, and reloaded the states. [[User:Phlox|'~'' Phlox']] 07:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Progress by July 2008 Many months have passed, and we have 50 bright new state pages and nearly 4,000 lovely county pages with the help of User:PhloxBot and some rather painless copying from Wikipedia. Prominent at the top of each county page is a great genealogy-related navigation box (pretty much as eulogised above). New contributors are using those links. See Template talk:Navbox county1-en for improvements related to that but also an expression of concern that the county pages aren't in county categories. (A few - maybe a few dozen or hundred - are.) So we don't have ideal linkages from every county page to its state categories. Overcoming that may be done in tandem with devising brilliant ideas for improving the state model - but reciprocally some of the state model ideas (such as the Cyndi's List ref) may be added to the county pages. The lovely new county pages don't have that and maybe some of the other features in the old model (unless they are hiding in that box). Discuss!! Robin Patterson 16:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)